Chapter 11 Part Three

three "Eat it!" said the traveling salesman, who laughed at Julien's hesitation.Is the child going to be a little poopy? The child unbuttoned his jacket and reached out to mold a pocket of his overalls.Mathias thought he wanted to save the candy for later. "Here," he said, "take the whole bag." "No need!" replied Julien.He looked at the executive salesman again... did he have a glass eye, so his sight was so disturbing? "Is this yours?" the boy asked. Mathias shifted his gaze from the child's eyes to the child's hand: the child's right hand was always holding the wrapped candy tightly, and the left hand was stretched out, with the thumb and index finger holding a piece of red candy paper, Exactly the same as the other one, also dull, transparent, and rolled—but this one was spread out, and there was no candy left.

"It's on the grass," Julien went on, tilting his head to show that it was the little hollow next to them. Is it yours? " "Perhaps it was left here when I came here," said the traveling salesman with affected indifference.But he immediately thought that the candy paper should not be said to be left over, but should be said to be thrown away.To cover his mistake, he jokingly added: "You can keep it if you want." "Not necessary," replied Julien. On his thin lips was another fleeting smile, just as the traveling salesman had seen him at the farmhouse.The child crumpled up the rectangular candy wrapper, flicked it with his middle finger, and it bounced into the sea.Mathias followed the ball of paper with his gaze, but he couldn't see the ball until it fell to the bottom.

"Why do you think it's mine?" "Because it's exactly the same as the ones you have." What is this?I bought it in town.Anyone can buy a bag of candy like this.Must have been eaten by Violet when she was tending the sheep..." "Who is it, Violet?" "I mean, poor Jacqueline Leduc. I'm confused by all your nonsense." The child was silent for a few seconds.Mathias took this opportunity to restore to his face a cheerful and calm expression, which he had not paid enough attention to during the conversation just now.Julien unwrapped the essence and put it in his mouth; at once he spat out the candy again into his hand, wrapped it in a candy wrapper, and threw them into the sea together.

"Little Jacques always buys coffee taffy," said the boy at last. "Then it must belong to someone else." "You just said it was yours." "Yes, yes. I ate one when I came here, and I threw the wrapper on the grass. I'm confused by all your questions." Now the traveling salesman was speaking with naturalness and earnestness, as if he were accommodating to the boyish capriciousness of the other person, although he did not understand the question at all.A seagull swooped down to the surface, then flapped its wings high into the air, almost brushing past both of them as it passed.

"I got it yesterday," said Julien. Mathias didn't know how to answer, he really wanted to leave this little Malick suddenly, and walk away, to show that he couldn't bear it anymore.But he still stayed.Although just a small piece of red paper can't prove anything, it's not worth offending this stubborn investigator. Maybe he has some other information about this matter.What are the circumstances? First, the gray sweater thing.Julien might have found another candy wrapper—the green one—or a third cigarette butt... What else?The doubt that he was in the farmhouse when the traveling salesman visited it also had to be clarified.In fact, why wouldn't the boy want to tell his father that no one had knocked when he was out in the yard or in the hayloft near noon yesterday?What interest had he in supporting Mathias' lie?If he wasn't in the farmhouse, why was he behaving so oddly?He refused to speak for such a long time, and finally suddenly invented a ridiculous lie, about repairing the transmission of a bicycle... tightening a screw... Maybe this is a remedy after many accidents on a long journey?

But if Julien Malick hadn't been in the farmhouse, where was he?Was there good reason for his father's assumption that he had indeed bent over the cliff on his way home from the bakery?Mathias was suddenly terrified: Julien came to Violet by another path—that is, “that” path—and he demanded that Violet express his attitude—he had a considerable hatred for Violet. , and even wished her dead—Julien hid behind the grave after seeing the traveling salesman, and he saw... Mathias wiped his forehead with his finger.These fantasies are totally untenable.His intensifying headaches had knocked him out of his mind.

Wouldn't it be utter madness to suddenly want to kill young Malick and throw him into the abyss for the sake of a perfectly ordinary candy wrapper? So far, Mathias has not thought that the two small candy wrappers thrown away yesterday-at least according to his thinking-could constitute physical evidence of this incident.He thought it bad practice for anyone to bring them out as physical evidence, because it never occurred to him to get them back, and he paid them no attention at all in his cool head.Didn't Julien himself just throw away the candy wrappers just now? Doesn't that prove anything... But there is another explanation...

There is another interpretation: does this dramatic gesture of Julien indicate that he will keep his secret, and that the criminal, if he is discovered, need not be afraid of what he will say?There was no other explanation for his eccentric manner in the farmhouse either.In the farmhouse as here he showed that he had the power to dominate Mathias: he could easily destroy evidence for him, or expose him new evidence, just by changing what Mathias had done in the previous hours. The content and route of the activity will do.However, it is not enough to have such full self-confidence based on assumptions—even if they are detailed assumptions—it is necessary to provide evidence to prove such assumptions.Julien "saw it."It is useless to deny this.Those eyes have such a menacing power because of the images they have taken into them.

But they were a very ordinary pair of gray eyes--neither beautiful nor ugly; neither large nor small--round, motionless, one on each side, and in the center of each a black hole. To hide his uneasiness, the traveling salesman was talking again, quickly and volubly--all incoherent and incoherent; listen.He talked about whatever came to mind: the shops in the port, the long crossing, the price of watches, the use of electricity, the sound of the waves, the weather of the past two days, the wind and the sun, the toads and the clouds.He also related how he missed the return steamer, which obliged him to stay on the island; he was going to visit some friends during this forced rest, and he also went out for a walk... He was out of breath, He had to pause, search his brains, and find another topic, so as not to repeat himself too much, when he heard Julien ask the question in the same indifferent and calm voice:

"Why are you picking up Petit Jacques's sweater and throwing it into the sea?" Mathias wiped his face with his fingers.Not to "lift up" the sweater, but to "lift it up again"... Feng Diyasi's answer can be said to start with a pleading tone: "Listen, little guy, I didn't know it was hers. I didn't know it was anybody's. I just wanted to see the reaction of the seagulls. What you just saw: the seagulls thought I milked a fish for them Woolen cloth……" The boy said nothing.With his strange fixed eyes he stared into Mathias's eyes--his eyes seemed insensible, even blind--or demented.

Mathias went on talking, and now he had no confidence at all, he was carried away by his own babbling, and carried him across the desolate wilderness, over the barren sand dunes, over the gravel piles and the sandy beaches, everywhere Suddenly a ghost appeared, blocking his way and forcing him to retreat.He talked and talked, and the more he talked, the more he felt untenable. He had come here for a walk, following the path at will, and he came here; with no other purpose than to move his legs.He caught a glimpse of a piece of cloth hanging from a rock.He climbed up to the rock out of sheer curiosity, thinking it was an old tattered suit (but Julien must have known that it was a gray sweater in perfect condition...), so he threw it at the seagull without hesitation. In the past, wanted to see the reaction of the seagulls.How did he know that this rag - this dirty sweater (on the contrary, very clean) - in short, this thing - belonged to little Jacqueline?He didn't even know that it was precisely here that the little girl fell... fell... fell... and he stopped.Julien watched him.Julien was about to say: O she did not fall. "But the child didn't speak. The traveling salesman resumed his monologue, this time speaking more quickly.Climbing up to the rocks is not easy, especially with thick leather shoes.Approaching the upper part, the stone will collapse when stepped on.But he didn't expect it to be so dangerous, otherwise he wouldn't take the risk.Because he didn't know that this place was exactly... But no one had ever said anything like that; that sweater belonged to Jacqueline, which didn't mean it was here.When talking about the candy wrappers just now, Mathias has already shown his feet and admitted that he knows the correct place for the little girl to guard the flock.It was too late to redeem it now... Anyway, from the position of the sweater, he couldn't assume that the sweater had been ripped off during the fall... etc. "That's not the case." Ning Lian said. Mathias was very panicked and changed the subject quickly, he was too afraid to explain.He began to speak so quickly that any contrary opinion—even his own remorse of what he had said—was impossible.In order to make up for the loopholes, he often repeated the same sentence several times.He even accidentally found himself memorizing multiplication tables.Suddenly he had an idea, reached into his pocket and took out the small gold-plated watch. "I said, since today is your birthday, I have a present for you: look at this beautiful watch!" But Julien, continuing to keep his eyes on him, retreated towards the meadows of the valley, away from the edge of the overhanging rocks, and towards the horseshoe-shaped notch.The traveling salesman did not dare to take a single step in Julien's direction, fearing that if he moved, he would speed up Yu Zhui's escape.He remained where he was, holding the chain of his watch in his outstretched hand, as if baiting the bird. When Julien had retreated to the bottom of the valley, close to the foot of the inland slope, he stood still, his eyes fixed on Mathias--even though they were twenty meters away, they were still fixed. "My grandmother would give me a prettier one," he said. Then he reached into the pocket of his overalls and brought out a large jumble of things; among them the traveling salesman recognized a coil of oily rope, loose as if it had been soaked in sea water.Because it is too far away, the rest cannot be seen clearly.Julien took a stub of a cigarette from it—three quarters of it smoked—and put it to his lips, put the string and the rest back in his pocket, and buttoned his coat. He held the end of his cigarette in the right corner of his mouth—without lighting it—and fixed his glassy eyes on the traveling salesman, waiting; his face was pale, and the peak of his hat was turned slightly to his left ear.In the end, it was Mathias who lowered his eyelids first. "You rented that new bicycle from the cigarette shop," said the other voice. "I recognize it. There's no pouch under the seat. The tools are in a box in the rear luggage rack." Of course it is.At the beginning of yesterday, the traveling salesman noticed: it was a nickel-plated rectangular metal box, one of the fixed parts of the car, and the back of the box contained the taillights, which are usually mounted on the fenders.Of course it is. Mathias raised his head again.He was alone in the wilderness.Ahead he saw a short stub of a cigarette in the middle of the grass in the little depression—perhaps it had been thrown there by Julien before he left—or it was what he had been looking for since morning—perhaps it was both Julien’s and That's what he was looking for.He walked over, only to realize that it was just a small cylindrical stone, white and smooth, which he had already picked up when he first arrived. Mathias walked slowly towards the lighthouse along the path leading to the customs, clinging to the cliff.He couldn't help laughing at the memory of Julien's theatrical retreat just now to reveal the incident about the bicycle: a metal box on the luggage rack at the back... He, the traveling salesman, never said anything to the contrary!Is this trivial matter so important that it must be corrected when Julien says it is a pouch?If the other side doesn't have stronger evidence... He might also say that the gray woolen coat rested not "on a rock" but "on the tip of a rock"—or at the door of Malick's cottage, where only a thorn rose was about to bloom.He might also say: "The main road is not perfectly flat, nor is it completely undulating, but it is the road from the two-kilometer corner to the side road that leads to the mill."—"The The billboard is not just in front of the coffee shop, but a little to the right, so it doesn't hinder access."—"The small square is not really triangular, its spire has been truncated by the small garden of the town hall, and it has become It becomes a trapezoid.”——“The enamel funnel in the mud of the port is not exactly the same blue as the one in the copper and iron shop.”—“The breakwater is not straight. It turned a 170-degree angle in the middle." Similarly, the time spent at the intersection leading to Malik's farmhouse was less than forty minutes.The traveling salesman wouldn't get there before 11:45 or 50 because it would be a long walk to the mill.Also, before meeting the old peasant woman at twelve-twenty, he had spent about a quarter of an hour fixing the transmission of the bicycle—he did it with the tools in the box . . . and so on.The time left was just enough time for a trip to the farmhouse--one back and forth, including waiting in the yard by the only thorn rose, and two attempts to fix the bicycle chain to kill that abnormal Noises: Once on the side road, another time in front of the house. Finally, the path leading to the customs house no longer clings to the edge of the cliff—at least part of the road does—it often leaves it three or four meters away, sometimes much further.What's more, it is not easy to accurately determine the position of this "edge", because in addition to some areas where steep rock walls plunge into the sea, there are also many places that are almost sunken to the water surface, covered with grass. There are also some dicotyledonous plants mixed in; there are also piles of steep rocks, which are more or less connected with the wilderness; or a gneiss plane with a slight slope, ending in a pool of gravel or soil. Sometimes the jaggedness of the coast widens suddenly because of a deep discontinuity in the overhanging rock, or a bottomed cove widening the gap in the coast.The traveling salesman had gone a long way—so it seemed to him—and the lighthouse, high into the clouds, rose suddenly before his eyes, over a dense cluster of outbuildings, walls and towers. Mathias turned left and walked towards the village.A man in fishermen's clothing had been walking ahead of him for some time.He followed the man back to the main road, to the houses at the entrance of the village, and into the coffee shop. There are many customers inside, the smoke is filled, and the voices of people are noisy.The electric lamps on the ceiling cast a dazzling pale blue light.Sometimes fragments of conversation would suddenly be heard over the din of voices, but it was almost impossible to make out what was being said; few seconds. Not a single table was empty.Mathias walked to the counter.The customers squeezed to make room for him.After walking for a long time, he was very tired and wanted a place to sit. The fat gray-haired woman recognized him.He had to explain again: missed the boat, bicycle, rented a room...etc.Fortunately, the hostess was too busy with work to listen to him or ask him questions.He begged her for aspirin.she didn't.He ordered a glass of absinthe.His headache was now a soft hum that filled his whole head, and he felt less uncomfortable. A very old man, standing beside him, was telling a story to a group of lighthouse workers.The clerks were all young, and they laughed loudly, shook each other's hands, or interrupted the old man's speech solemnly, making some mocking criticism, which caused a roar of laughter.The old man's deep voice was lost in the noise, and only a few words, a few words, reached Mathias' ears.But as the old man spoke slowly and repeatedly, and through the mocking criticisms of the audience, he also understood that it was an old local legend--though he had never heard this legend in his childhood.It is said that every spring, a young virgin must be thrown into the sea from the hanging rock to comfort the god of storms and make travelers and fishermen safe at sea.A huge monster with the head of a dog and the body of a snake emerges from the waves and swallows the sacrificed virgin alive in front of the sacrificer.There is no doubt that this story was caused by the death of the little shepherdess.The old man talked about the sacrificial ceremony in great detail, but most of it was unintelligible; what is strange is that he used the present tense to narrate: "Tell the virgin to kneel down", "Tie her hands behind her back", "Blindfolded her with the market", "the slimy body of the dragon could be seen in the swaying sea"... A fisherman stepped between Mathias and the group in order to get closer to the counter.The traveling salesman pushed his way to the other side, and he could hear nothing more but the young man's shout. "...Little Louis also said some things to threaten her because of her...his engagement..." The voice was loud and taught, passing over the heads of three or four customers from the other side. Behind Mathias there were other people talking about the big news of the day.The whole coffee shop, the whole island, was talking about this tragic event.The fat woman poured a glass of red wine for the new customer who stood to the right of the traveling salesman.She holds the bottle with her left hand. On the wall, above the top row of wine bottles, four brass nails nailed a yellow sign: "Go to the watch shop to buy a watch." Mathias drank the glass of absinthe.He suddenly felt that the small suitcase between his legs was gone, and when he looked down, the small suitcase was gone.He reached into his short pocket, tried to point the grease from his fingers to the coil of rope, and looked up at the traveling salesman.Thinking he was asking for change, the landlady called out to him the price of the drink; but it was the glass of bitters that he was going to pay for.So he turned to the fat woman, or the woman, or the girl, or the young maid, and put down the little suitcase to take up the little one, while the sailor and the fisherman crept in , mixed in, inserted between Mathias and the traveling salesman... Mathias pointed to his forehead.It was nearly dark.He was sitting on a chair in the middle of the road--in the middle of the road--in front of the Black Chick coffee shop. "Is it better?" a man in a leather jacket next to him asked him. "Better, thank you." Mathias replied.He had seen this fellow somewhere.He wanted to explain the reason for his discomfort: "Because of the smoke, the noise, and the talking too much..." He couldn't find any more words.But he has been able to stand up without difficulty. He looked around for the small case, but immediately remembered that he had left the case in the room this morning.He thanked again, picked up the chair and tried to move it back into the shop, but the man grabbed his hand to stop him, and he had to go—follow the road to the lonely little house, which was in the narrow In the depths of the small bay, in the valley full of reeds. Although it was dark, he still walked without hesitation.Sometimes the path clings to the cliffs facing the sea, and the places where one's footsteps are barely discernible, and he has no fear.He walked with firm steps toward the house whose only window—without curtains—was glowing reddish against the blue sky of dusk. He bent his head and looked in through the windowpane.Although a layer of dirt has accumulated on the window glass, everything inside can still be seen clearly.It was very dark in the room, especially in the corners.What Mathias really saw clearly was only those close to the lights—he was standing quite high up in the room, so that he was invisible to those in the room. The room was lit by a gasoline lamp, which stood in the middle of the long dark brown table.Also on the table, between the lamp and the window, were two white basins side by side - touching each other - and an unopened one-liter bottle of wine, so dark that it was impossible to guess the bottle. What kind of wine is in it.The rest of the table was empty except for shadows: the large distorted shadow of the bottle; the half-moon shadow on the edge of the basin near the window; Behind the table, in the right (furthest) corner of the room, there is a large cooking stove, set against the inner wall, visible only by the orange-red light from the half-opened ashes drawer. exist. Two figures stood facing each other: one was Jean Robin—also called Pierre—the other was the unknown young woman, much smaller in stature.Both stand at the opposite end of the table (from the window), he on the left - in front of the window in other words - and she at the end of the table, near the fire. Between them and the table was a bench—as long as the table, but hidden from view by the table.The whole room is divided into a series of parallel lines: first is the wall of the house, the stove is on the right against the wall, and there are several boxes, and on the left is a larger piece of furniture in the dark; In the distance there is the line of the man and the woman; further on, the invisible bench, the large axis of the rectangular table - on which rest the petrol lamp and the opaque wine bottle - and finally, the only windows. If we divide it all again with a vertical line, the order from front to back is: the central pillar of the window, the crescent shadow of the second basin, the wine bottle, the man (Jean Robin or by El ), a box on the ground with the mouth upward; then, one meter away to the right, is the burning gasoline lamp; and about one meter further, is the end of the table, the unidentified woman , to the left of the stove. Therefore, the distance between a man and a woman is two meters, or a little further.She looked up at him with a frightened face. At this moment the man opened his mouth and moved his lips as if speaking, but the traveling salesman, who was watching from behind the window, could not hear a sound.Either the windows were closed too tightly, or the waves crashed against the rocks at the mouth of the cove behind him.The man's speech was not clear and forceful enough to count the number of syllables he uttered.He spoke slowly for about ten seconds—about thirty syllables, maybe a little less. The young woman responded with a yelp—about four or five syllables—what seemed to be a loud yell.This time, there was no sound coming out of the window either.Then she took a step closer to the man, holding one hand (left hand) on the edge of the table. Now she looked at the gasoline lamp, said a few words not so loudly, and then let the features on her face gradually become strange: the eyes closed, the corners of the mouth opened, and the nose wings moved. she cried.A tear trickled down his cheek slowly.She sat down on the bench, and instead of putting her feet between the bench and the table, she turned her upper body toward the table, resting her forearms on the table and clasping her hands.Finally she threw her head forward and buried her face in her hands.Her golden hair shone brightly in the light. At this time, the man approached calmly, stood behind her, looked at her for a while, then stretched out his hand, and stroked the back of her neck with his fingertips for a long time.The big hand, the blond head, the gasoline lamp, the rim of the first basin (the one on the right), the pedestal to the left of the window, are now on the same oblique line. The lamp was made of brass and colorless glass.A concave conical lamp post stands upright on the square pedestal, supporting the oil tank—the oil pavilion is semicircular, with the lower side recessed.The oil tank was half filled with a brownish liquid, not at all like the gasoline sold on the market.The upper part of the oil cylinder has a jagged metal ring about two fingers high, which holds the glass lampshade—a straight tube, only a little wider at the foot.This perforated metal ring, violently illuminated from within by lights, was the most visible thing in the whole room.The eyelets of the grommets are two rows of equal-area circles above and below, cut into each other—more precisely, hoops, since they are empty in the middle—and each hoop of the upper row fits exactly one hoop of the lower row. On the top, there are three or four centimeters connected to each other. The flame itself arises from a ring-shaped wick which, viewed from the side, appears to be a triangle with a large notch in the top, so that the flame has not one point but two.One of the points is much higher and more slender than the other; a concave arc in the middle connects the two points--like a circular depression with a raised hillock on one side, but the two small The mound is not symmetrical. Mathias stared at the light for too long, dazzled, and finally moved his eyes away.In order to rest his eyes for a while, he moved his gaze to the windows—four identical panes of glass, without curtains or windscreens, facing the night.He closed his eyelids forcefully several times in a row, pressing his eyeballs tightly, trying to expel the ring of fire left on the eye mask. He moved his head close to the pane, trying to look out, but could see nothing: neither the sea nor the moor, not even the garden.There are neither stars nor moon outside.Total darkness.Mathias looked back at his memorandum, which lay on the thick little table built into the window sill, spread out on the page of the day—Wednesday. He re-read the memorabilia he had just sorted out, and his recent actions were all recorded in it.As for today, on the whole, there is nothing to be deleted or to be added.And he met too many witnesses. He turned to the previous page and went back to Tuesday, reviewing once more how every minute from eleven o'clock in the morning to one o'clock in the afternoon had passed in his imagination.He was content to close a crooked circle with the point of a pencil.Everything is fine from now on. But he smiled at the thought of the futility of doing so.Such careful planning, which made everything very accurate-this kind of accuracy is extraordinary, excessive, and suspicious-not only failed to prove his innocence, but proved his guilt.Either way, it's too late to do so now.Young Julien Malick had probably denounced him that evening.In fact, after the conversation on the edge of the cliff, the boy's original hesitation disappeared; the clumsy words and actions of the salesman had told him beyond doubt, and the boy might know something else. because he saw it with his own eyes.Tomorrow, early in the morning, the old security guard was coming to arrest "a scumbag who...wait a minute."Escaping in a fishing boat did not even occur to him: the police from all the small ports on the mainland would be waiting for him at the docks. He wondered if there were handcuffs on the island, and how long the chain between the two hoops of the handcuffs was.The right half of the memo records the money he received and what watches he sold.At least this part does not need to be modified, and there is nothing to catch, because Mathias has already taken back the watch he gave away the day before.He wanted to end the day's utterly fictional experience by scribbling four words in pencil on the top of the Wednesday page: "Slept well." The Thursday page was still blank, and he wrote the four words on it in advance.Then he'd get on the black-covered memo. He went over and put the gasoline lamp on the small round table by the bed, took off his clothes, put them on the chair one by one, put on the pajamas that the landlady lent him, wound up the watch, Put the watch next to the lamp, turn the wick down a bit, and blow out the lamp on the shade. He was groping to throw off the quilt to sleep when he suddenly remembered the electric light.When the light went out just now, he had turned the switch several times. He thought that the light went out because the switch was not working. This situation had happened many times before.But the light still didn't come on.Soon the landlady came knocking*perhaps kicked? ), holding a lamp in each hand.According to her, "partial blackouts" were frequent occurrences, sometimes with prolonged delays; therefore the inhabitants of the island kept their ancient oil lamps, and kept them as well as in the past, so that they could be used at all times. "They are still trying to exaggerate the progress of civilization, forget it." Finally the landlady said this and left with a lamp. Mathias wondered if the light switch was on or off.If it was turned off, the electricity might have been restored, but he didn't know it; if it was turned on, the light would automatically turn on in the middle of the night.He went to the door in the dark, and halfway his hands found the clothes chair and the marble top of the large chest of drawers. He turned the light switch mounted next to the door frame again.The light never came on.Mathias tried to remember what would make the switch off, but he couldn't; he simply pushed the little metal ball again. He groped his way back to the bed and slipped under the covers; he felt cold and damp under the covers.He lies on his back with his limbs stretched out, his legs closed, and his hands outstretched, forming a cross.His left hand touched the wall, and his right arm hung completely outside the bed.The window on the right began to emerge from the darkness, with a dark blue blurred light on the window. Only then does the traveling salesman realize how tired he is--very, infinitely tired.For the last four kilometers, he walked briskly on the main road, and in the dark, from Heiyan Village to the town, which exhausted him.At dinner, he hardly touched the dishes prepared for him by the owner of the coffee shop; fortunately, the owner did not say anything to him.Mathias finished his supper quickly so that he could go back to his room--it was a back room, facing the moor; the upholstery in the room was large and dark. So he was alone again in this room where he had spent his whole childhood—and by that whole childhood, of course not including the first few years after his mother's death, which had died shortly after his birth.Little Ma Yasi was brought up by his aunt as his own son.His father, who soon remarried, took him back from his aunt's house immediately.His stepmother also treated him as his own son, and it took him a long time to figure out which of the two women was his mother; it took him even longer to realize that his mother was dead.People often tell him about this incident from his childhood. He was wondering if the big wardrobe between the window and the room was always locked?The small ropes he collected are placed in this big wardrobe.It's all over now.He didn't even know where the house was. Violet's frightened face appeared at the foot of the bed.She was sitting in a chair with its back against the wall (a horizontal line was left on the wall paper).The girl's chin was pressed against the railing of the wooden bed, and her two little hands were also climbing on the edge of the bed.There was a wardrobe behind her, a third wardrobe beyond that on the right, then a dresser and two other chairs of different shapes, and finally the window.Alone again in the room in which he had spent his whole life, he gazed at the small square window set deep in the wall, with no curtains on the pane.The wilderness is outside the window, and there is no yard or a small corner of the garden in the middle.离房子二十公尺的地方立着一根粗大的木桩——毫无疑问是过去一种设备的遗迹；在木桩的圆顶上栖着一只海鸥。 天色灰暗；刮着风；可以听见一阵阵的风声。可是海鸥却动也不动地牺在木桩上。它可能已经停在那里很久；马弟雅思并没有看见它飞来。 它露出侧面，头向右边。它是一只肥大的白色海鸟，头上没有黑色的冠盖，翅膀的颜色相当深，可是灰暗无光——它是通常称为庆海鸥的那一种。 它是一只灰白色的大海鸟，白色的头上没有黑色的冠盖。只有翅膀和尾巴是深颜色的。它是附近海岸一带最普通的一种海鸥。 马弟雅思没有看见它飞来。它在那里一定已经很久，动也不动地牺在木桩上。 它恰好呈现着侧面，头转向右方。长长的翅膀会扰着，翅膀的尖端在尾巴上面交叉，尾巴也是相当短的。它的橡是平的，很厚，黄色，微弯，可是尖端却呈勾状。翅膀下边和尖端都有较深色的羽毛。 下面只看见一只右脚（另一只恰好被右脚遮没），又瘦又直，布满黄色的鳞片。它从腹下一个弯成一百二十度角的关节开始，和上面布满羽毛的肉身接连，这肉身只露出这一小部分。另一只脚可以看见脚趾间的脚馍，和伸开在木桩的圆顶上的尖爪。 这根木桩上面系着疏格子小门，使花园和旷野相通，中间只隔着钉在木桩上的铁丝篱笆。 花园很整齐地分成许多平行的花坛，由一条条保养得很好的小径隔开；园中百花齐放，彩色缤纷，在阳光底下显得无比灿烂。